Published in:
01-06-2007 | News
Ethics and end-of-life care in the new training curriculum for ICU physicians in Italy
Author:
Alberto Giannini
Published in:
Intensive Care Medicine
|
Issue 6/2007
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Excerpt
Reform of Italian regulations on specialization in anesthesia and intensive care comes into effect in May 2007 [
1], in a move by the Ministry of Education and Universities to update the previous regulations which date back to 1996 [
2]. In Italy today teaching in specialization schools of anesthesia and intensive care covers a wide range of disciplines, which also include pain management, disaster medicine, hyperbaric medicine, and emergency toxicology. The text of the regulations describes the training objectives of the course to be covered over 4 years and gives a detailed list of all the competences and procedures considered indispensable to provide comprehensive training to the specialist in anesthesia and intensive care. However, this extensive description of the training curriculum for ICU physicians includes only scant consideration of the ethical aspects of intensive medicine. These are mentioned briefly in the paragraph on “integrative objectives” which states that, “the resident must know the administrative procedures relating to the discipline, and the relevant managerial, bioethical and medicolegal implications, fully respecting the safety regulations and the quality of care provided”. …